Are there any things in Linux that need to be started over from scratch?

Linux@lemmy.ml – 162 points – 7 months ago

I'm curious how software can be created and evolve over time. I'm afraid that at some point, we'll realize there are issues with the software we're using that can only be remedied by massive changes or a complete rewrite.

Are there any instances of this happening? Where something is designed with a flaw that doesn't get realized until much later, necessitating scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch?

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What's wrong with it?

$PATH shouldn't even be a thing, as today disk space is cheap so there is no need to scatter binaries all over the place.

Historically, /usr was created so that you could mount a new disk here and have more binaries installed on your system when the disk with /bin was full.

And there are just so many other stuff like that which doesn't make sense anymore (/var/tmp comes to mind, /opt, /home which was supposed to be /usr but name was already taken, etc ...).

How would virtual environment software, like conda, work without $PATH?

Today's software would probably break, but my point is that $PATH is a relic from ancient times that solved a problem we don't have anymore.

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